I Wish…

Desire.  Up the map we go to level 6.  Dr. Hawkins found that Desire vibrates at a level of 125.  Desire is where you find jealousy, comparing, and longing.  You can hear yourself say I want more, and I deserve more.

How often have you said that I can’t keep living this way?  You notice how everyone else is living their life and wish that you could have that in your life.  It could be about anything that you want in your life from the seemingly mundane to the life altering.  What do you wish you had?

For so many years growing up, I just wanted to be like everyone else.  I didn’t want to be different.  I didn’t want to be singled out.  I wanted what everyone else wanted.  I would move up into Desire and then slip back into Fear.  I wanted to make a change in my life, but did I truly want it.  Not enough apparently because I would remain in the dream state, but why would I do that?  The next level up from Desire is Anger.  I didn’t want to be an angry person.  So, I would fluctuate between Fear and Desire.  I would hope and dream and then my fears would swallow me up.  I couldn’t take that step.  I couldn’t completely walk through that door.  I had a desire to be like everyone else, but I couldn’t quite do it.  In this case it might be because I wasn’t meant to be like everyone else.  I would do it for a while, but a true part of me would come in and the illusion would be dashed.  I was meant to be me and my path forward in this life may have similarities to yours, but it varies.

Other examples, love.  I have longed and dreamed since I was a little girl to be a wife and have children.  I’m still single and have no children.  My fears couldn’t quite overcome my desire, until recently.  I’ve been working on my personal blocks that have led me to turn down dates for no seemingly good reason other than the idea of how could that person possibly like me.  I had to get angry and move up before I could start to become empowered.  I might still be single, but I’ve finally started to become confident in who I am as person.  My desire finally started to push me forward.  My desire started to outweigh my fear.

What do you desire in your life?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more about what I do?  Click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

I’m Afraid

Fear.  The 5th level of Dr. David Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness, which vibrates at a level of 100 within the body.  Most of us are aware of the feeling of I’m afraid, but how does it make you act?  It can make you feel anxious; Give you a racing brain; The inability to focus; And paralyze you.

Fear is an emotion that can controls us.  It prevents us from moving forward.  Whether it’s a fear that is conscious or unconscious.  Fear is a complex emotion that we may not even realize is controlling us.  Our fears can be used to manipulate us.  While we think it might be keeping us safe, it is preventing us from living and growing.

Fear is all around us.  Look at the world around us.  The things that we’ve been taught can end up being used against us.  The idea that we might not be right about something, that we have long believed to be true, can keep us from examining a new perspective or listening to a new opinion.  This is reflected everywhere right now.  People will only follow people on Facebook and Instagram that have the same beliefs.  They will follow a news outlet that portrays their political perspective.  We seem to live in a moment in time where even facts can be twisted into a lie or to fit an opinion.  How can that be?  People are fearful that if others knew the truth, they would be different, so only certain information is disclosed.  We’re at a turning point right now, you have the option examine something for what it is and make up your own mind.  You don’t have to let the collective fears control you.

Then there are individual fears.  For so many years, I would say that I was afraid of living.  I’d been hurt and I wanted to control situations, so they turned out how I wanted.  I wanted things to magically appear without having to put myself out there.  Do I still try to do this?  Unfortunately, yes.  I’m a human being, just like you.  I don’t want to be wrong, but the truth is, I don’t know everything.

My fears stopped me from moving forward.  They stopped me from leaving jobs, going on dates, or living an authentic life.  Oh, where to begin with my fears.  We live within a set range of emotions.  The top of my set was probably Fear for a long time.  I would go to bed at night and my mind would race.  I had severe anxiety and my mind would loop.  I didn’t know how to stop it.  People would give me suggestions and I didn’t feel capable of giving it a try.  I would say that I’m not ready or I’ll try later.  It could have been as simple as dancing with someone.  The problem was that I never became ready.  I didn’t try again later.  Fear had paralyzed me and my life.

The thing is that life around me didn’t stop.  I just didn’t participate in it.  I was stuck.  I felt detached from the world and myself.  I saw what seemed like everyone moving on in their life and I remained in the same place.  The things that I had dreamed of growing up seemed to allude me.  I missed so many opportunities became my fears held me back.

So how did I start moving forward?  At first it was exploring something new.  Opening my mind up to the possibility that maybe there was something I didn’t know.  That led me to participating in something new, which led me to becoming a part of something.  One day things were just different.  I had been moving through my fear without even realizing it.  Imagine what you could do, if you did realize you were moving through your fears.

Does that mean that my life became “perfect”?  No, but it was better.  There were so many things that I had discounted.  People that I had hurt and hadn’t even realized.  There were layers upon layers that I needed to examine.

The day that I was fired from my job was terrifying and freeing at the same time.  I hadn’t been without a job since I was 17.  I knew that I was moving in a less traditional direction, but I needed to have a way to earn an income.  What was I going to do?  I started out small.  I started looking for a job in another field, while also dreaming about what could be.  I started dreaming about a business that combined all the things that I had become interested in, but how did I do that?  I began asking questions and the answers were revealed.  I started putting together a business.  When my severance expired, I wasn’t where I had hoped to be, but I kept going.  I got a part-time job.  I cut out everything that I didn’t need or use on a regular basis.  I kept going.  Are things in my life perfect now?  No, but I’m so much happier today than I was just over a year ago.  I started to confront my fears and space started to open.  I still have fears that are being tackled, but they no longer hold me back from living.  By releasing fear, I started moving into Desire.

What fears are holding you back?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more about what I do?  Click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

What Could Have Been

Grief.  The 4th level on the Map of Consciousness.  According to Dr. David R. Hawkins, Grief vibrates at a level of 75 and is the land where sorrow, depression and sadness resonate.  It is the inner voice that says I didn’t want it to be this way; It could have been different; I don’t want to let go.

Grief is an area of life that most of us try to avoid, but we seem to land there at the strangest of times.  There’s the obvious of grieving the loss of a loved one or an idol.  As of the writing of this blog post, the death of Kobe Bryant from a helicopter cash is plastered across the media.  No matter what you thought of him as a person, you can’t question that many people idolized him and are now grieving the loss of a not only a man, his daughter and others on board, but the idea of what could have been.  What if he hadn’t gotten on that helicopter in foggy weather?

There’s also grief over a part of you that was lost.  A part of you that you held back for whatever reason.  A part of you that wasn’t allowed to experience life.  Maybe your childhood prevented you from truly living as a child. 

Another type of grief is the loss of a dream.  This is something that we currently see across the United States.  No matter what your political ideology, things aren’t the way we thought they were or that they could be.  Things could and should be different.  People should be kinder to each other.  They shouldn’t bully others because their viewpoint is different.  People should listen to each other.

But, let’s go back to the most obvious form of grief, death of a loved one.  How did you learn to grieve a loss?  There were family members that disappeared from my life, but I had only met most of them a handful of times.  I lost a classmate at the age of 4 in a tragic accident.  I don’t know that at 4 I began to understand what that actually meant or the impact it had on me, but I will say the first person that I was close to that died was at the age of 17, my maternal grandfather Paul.  As children we see our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and elders as greater than life figures.  Nothing will ever happen to them, but this is life.  For each one of us, our life on this planet is limited.  Whether it is a long-fulfilled life or one cut tragically short.  I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents growing up.  They were a part of every event that I can recall, birthdays and holidays.  I would spend time with them at their home.  My greatest remembrance of my Papa was his love of reading and watching C-SPAN all day long.  He taught me to love reading and to make my own opinions, to research and discover them for myself.

The indications that his time was running out began in early December.  He was gone by January 1.  Watching him that Christmas it was obvious that I probably wouldn’t see him again and that he was no longer the infallible person I’d known.  He was going blind and had trouble taking the tape off a present.

I went to bed on December 31 sobbing and gasping for breath.  The next morning, I knew why.  I did what I’d been taught to do, I soldiered on.  I went back to school, only briefly though for the Ice Storm of 1998 struck that week.  My first funeral was held in the dark.  The minister needed a flashlight to read his notes.  He hadn’t brought one with him, so he had to borrow one from one of my aunts.  I watched my grandmother and the word that had always come to mind is stoic.  She had lost her partner of 57 years.  I never saw her cry.  That was my true introduction to grief.  I don’t know that I truly knew how to process the loss.  New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day lost their magical feeling and I learned to live without him.  Starting in 2004, most of that generation disappeared year by year.  Other than 2006 and 2011, I lost a close family member every year until 2012.  Every death was different.  Every reaction was different, and I just wanted it to stop.

I don’t know that I had time to fully process one loss before I was on to the next.  I did learn that every person grieves differently.  Some seem to have incredible faith, some know their spirit is still with us, and others seem to stop living.

In order to move forward, we truly must process our grief in whatever form it may be.  That may involve crying.  It may involve soul searching.  However, your process it is the right way for you.  So many of us stay stuck in Apathy because we don’t want to feel.  We don’t want to confront and deal with our emotions.  Our emotions make us human.  By releasing them, we’re able to move up to Fear.

What in your life are you grieving or need to grieve?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more about what I do?  Click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

It’s Not My Fault!

Apathy or Blame.  Number 3 on the Map of Consciousness.  Where it’s not my fault.  Why did they do this to me?  This is where the helpless and poor me reside and you’re the victim of your life.  According to Dr. Hawkins, Apathy resonates at a vibration of 50.

When you’re in Apathy, you tend to feel stuck and can’t move forward.  You can’t decide.  A person can remain in Apathy for a long time unless their focus begins to shift.  You may not want to feel an emotion, whether it be grief, fear, or anger.  You may not want to make a decision that could be difficult.  You may not even know you’re doing it.  Sometimes it’s easier to be stuck.  It can feel like no matter what you do, nothing will change.  It can’t possibly get any better.  Are you exhausted?  You could be resonating here in Apathy.  You’re left wandering around, just feeling lost.

What if I said that you don’t have to stay here, but like Shame and Guilt, you need to speak it and own what has led you to this point.

Emotional numbing is term that is used when it comes to Apathy.  For many years, I didn’t want to feel anything bad.  I only wanted to experience the good in life.  I had experienced enough loss.  Too many people that I knew had died or let me down and I was tired of it.  I didn’t want to hurt anymore.  I was avoiding the pain.  I was in denial.

I would complain about my life.  Other people were making my life miserable.  At one of my previous jobs, I loved it until the main attorney I worked with left to move across the country.  I was assigned to another attorney.  We had different work styles and I wasn’t all that interested in the type of law that she practiced, but I didn’t have a choice.  I tried to push through as best I could, but I was quickly losing interest.  I tried to get assigned to someone else, but that didn’t work.  Every night I would come home and complain.  I would get sympathy from some of my co-workers.  I felt like I had no options.  This went on for months.  Eventually the emotions took over.  I would listen to “Mean” by Taylor Swift repeatedly on the ride home and cry.  Nothing was changing.

One day I had a conversation with a colleague.  He said I had options.  If things couldn’t change where I was, I had the option to leave.  I had never considered myself a quitter.  My father had worked at one job for his career.  I thought that was part of having a career, you worked at one job until your retired.  It was the first time I felt like I had options.  I started to think about the possibility of something new.  Within a few weeks, I had a new job.

Denial had been a pattern for me in the past.  Maybe if I stuck my head in the sand, the problem would go away.  But it never did.  I had to accept the situation for what it was.  I had to grieve what I had lost.  I had to move up the Map of Consciousness.

Who do you blame?  What’s keeping you stuck?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more about what I do?  Click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

Why Did I Say That?

Guilt.  The feeling of being a failure and inadequate.  Where you ask yourself why did I do that?  Why did I say that?  Can I fix it?  On Dr. Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness, Guilt vibrates at a level of 30.

Guilt is a step up from Shame.  The biggest difference between the two is with Shame, you’re a bad person and with Guilt what you did was bad.  Guilt still isn’t an emotion that most of us wish to talk about, but it is better than speaking about your Shame.  The only way through these emotions is to speak them aloud.

I spent a large portion of my life living in Guilt.  I would question everything I said.  I wanted to fix it, but I didn’t know how.  I spent hours of my day trying to figure out what I did or said that was wrong.  How did I end up there?  I felt guilty if I acted and guilty if I didn’t.  Why didn’t I say anything? 

The things that I wished that I had said were the most common for me.  I wished that I had told someone that I liked him, or I didn’t speak up for myself and allowed someone to walk all over me.  But why didn’t I?  Could I say something the next time and “fix it”?  What if I could go back and do something over again and then fix it?  These were the repeating stories in my head.  Most every interaction with someone else led to these questions and it was exhausting.

In the past my tendency was to keep quiet.  When I would say something and it wouldn’t come out right or someone would misinterpret my point, it was easier to keep quiet.  We can have as much guilt for what we did do or say as what we didn’t.  My guilt and shame were one in this case.  If I didn’t say something, it was because I thought who was I to have an opinion or to think that someone might feel the same way?

There’s a saying that the guilt can eat you alive and it can.  It’s an emotion that can take the joy of life away from you.  If you question everything you say, every action or reaction, what’s left?  My mind would loop around the past.  Why did I do that?  Why did I say that?  But by living in Guilt I never allowed myself to live in the present.  I didn’t allow myself to experience life or what could be.

To get out of the loop, I had to determine what my Guilt was about.  Once I was able to speak it and claim it, I was on to the next level of the map, Apathy.

What do you feel Guilty about?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more about what I do?  Click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

I’m Not Good Enough

Shame.  The very bottom of Dr. David Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness.  If you resonate at Shame, you’re vibrating at an energetic level of about 20.  The emotional level where I’m not good enough, I hate myself and I feel nothing reside.  A place that is dark and undeserving.

Shame is a challenging place to be, but unfortunately it’s one where most of us have been.  Just talking about Shame has a negative connotation to it.  Who wants to talk about their sense of shame?  After last week’s blog post I knew that the next steps were for me to discuss Dr. Hawkins’ work in depth and the best approach would be to start from the bottom, but I had resistance to discussing it.  But, why?  It meant me discussing my own past shames.  Even though I’ve worked through it, doesn’t necessarily mean I want to post it on the internet.   But, it’s the next step on my journey so here goes.

I spent quite a few years not feeling good enough.  Shame had a certain comfort to it.  I couldn’t say no to other people.  That would mean they might catch on to my not being good enough then they really wouldn’t love me.  The only thing that I truly wanted was for love to be in my life, but I couldn’t even love myself.  I spent a long time in that place of why would anyone love me.  How I ended up there is more complicated.  It involves topics that I’ve previously discussed and ones that I’ve yet to reveal, but the point is that I was ashamed of myself.  There were some bright shiny moments where I would allow myself to feel more, but eventually the feelings would come back and ensnare me again.

I knew that my family had a tendency towards addiction, so I avoided alcohol and drugs, but was trapped by one thing that I couldn’t avoid, food.  I would use sugary or salty foods, primarily junk foods to numb my pain.  It created a spiral where it would numb my pain, but then added to the feeling of being unlovable since I was overweight.

So how did I move up?  I began working through my past.  As I did more work and discovered more about myself, I started to allow little bits of love in.  There are some people that you can’t help but allow in.  For me, they were my nephews and niece.  Beginning with the birth of my eldest nephew in 2011, I had the pure light of a child in my life.  A new sense of wonder and the ability to look at life through a different set of eyes.  I could see for the first time that I didn’t start out there and I didn’t have to stay there.  I had hope.

Do you feel this way about a part of your life?  Let me know.  Do you want to know more about what I do?  Click here to book a discovery session or an appointment.

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